It’s the holiday season, and you know what that means: lots of free time to go see the films that were nominated for Golden Globes — and the ones that are favored for Oscar nods too. Richard Corliss’s list of the Best Movies of 2012 is the perfect place to start. He loved Amour the most, and the Golden Globes did too, nominating the touching flick for Best Foreign Language Film. Winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in France, it’s a tale of 80-year-old music teachers Georges and Anne growing old together, as Georges cares for his love, Anne, after she has suffered two debilitating strokes. “The villain here is the decay to which we are all heirs,” Corliss writes. Austrian director Michael Haneke also won the Palme d’Or in 2009 and the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film in 2010 for his World War I flick The White Ribbon (2009).

Other Golden Globe nominees on Corliss’s list include his No. 6 pick, Zero Dark Thirty, which got nods for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Actress (Jessica Chastain). His No. 3 pick, Life of Pi, is up for Best Picture, Drama, and, on a more lighthearted note, Frankenweenie (No. 9 pick) is up for Best Animated Film.